Shadow Energies
The intensity of shadow energies is a way of getting noticed: Hiding something is not the same as killing it. Shadow energies remain alive. Even though you refuse to look at them, they arent extinguishedin fact, their desire for life becomes all the more desperate.To catch your attention as a parent, a child who is overlooked will become more and more extreme in its behavior: first a call for attention, then a cry, then a tantrum. Shadow energies follow much the same pattern.It seems only reasonable to see panic attacks, for example, as a hidden fear throwing a tantrum. That same fear first called out to be noticed in a normal way, but when the person refused to notice it, a call turned into a cry and finally ended up as a full-blown attack.Fear and anger are especially adept at increasing the voltage to the point where we feel that they are alien, evil, demonic forces acting without our will. They are actually just aspects of consciousness forced into inhuman intensity by repression. Repression says, If I dont look at you, you will leave me alone. To which the shadow answers, I can do things that will make you look at me.Bringing consciousness to any energy diffuses it: This follows naturally from the last statement. If an energy demands your attention, then paying attention will begin to satisfy it. An overlooked child isnt placated by only one glance. It takes time to change any behavior for good or ill and, like children, our shadow energies get stuck in patterns and habits.But this doesnt alter the general truth that if you bring light into the shadow, its distortions start to lessen and eventually are healed. Is there time enough and patience to do the whole job thoroughly? Theres no fixed answer to that.Adapted from The Book of Secrets, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2004).
